Paywalls are the norm of traditional journalism. People got so used to a bunch of spammy, ad-fed, click bait journalism and now many are not willing to pay for good articles.
I wish there was a better way to discuss these kinds of articles. There are sometimes gift links which are best for smaller group discussions… But nobody’s found a model that isn’t the mess that is ads that also allows “free viewing.”
Paywalls are the norm of traditional journalism. People got so used to a bunch of spammy, ad-fed, click bait journalism and now many are not willing to pay for good articles.
Huh. You’re not wrong. Newspapers were classic user-fee newsfeeds.
But you could give away your paper when you were done. Is that early BitTorrent?
Other differences: When you bought a newspaper you got a physical product. You could read it, keep it, frame it, craft with it, or whatever you want. It took labor and machinery to create and distribute. The online article costs nothing to make, isn’t something you can keep or use in any way, in fact at any point you might lose access to it.
I don’t know if that was ever different, but I’m pretty sure that a lot of that is journalists taking themselves way too seriously.
Even the paid sites are often enough filled with tabloid level crap, fluffed up news agency printouts and those god awful “reports” that start with a 500 word description of the door of the interviewee. That’s not journalism and most people are not willing to pay for that.
I tried several subscriptions over the years and honestly, the articles that really added something can be counted on one or two hands. I’m sure I missed a lot of good and valuable articles, but I’m not ready to sift through tons of crap to find a few gems.
This is a bad take.
Paywalls are the norm of traditional journalism. People got so used to a bunch of spammy, ad-fed, click bait journalism and now many are not willing to pay for good articles.
I wish there was a better way to discuss these kinds of articles. There are sometimes gift links which are best for smaller group discussions… But nobody’s found a model that isn’t the mess that is ads that also allows “free viewing.”
Eh, newspapers amd magazines had ads, they were just easier to skip
Huh. You’re not wrong. Newspapers were classic user-fee newsfeeds.
But you could give away your paper when you were done. Is that early BitTorrent?
Other differences: When you bought a newspaper you got a physical product. You could read it, keep it, frame it, craft with it, or whatever you want. It took labor and machinery to create and distribute. The online article costs nothing to make, isn’t something you can keep or use in any way, in fact at any point you might lose access to it.
See my response to sometime else about this a bit further down, if you like.
But I disagree it’s a “bad take”. I just didn’t word it as clearly at I should have.
I don’t know if that was ever different, but I’m pretty sure that a lot of that is journalists taking themselves way too seriously.
Even the paid sites are often enough filled with tabloid level crap, fluffed up news agency printouts and those god awful “reports” that start with a 500 word description of the door of the interviewee. That’s not journalism and most people are not willing to pay for that.
I tried several subscriptions over the years and honestly, the articles that really added something can be counted on one or two hands. I’m sure I missed a lot of good and valuable articles, but I’m not ready to sift through tons of crap to find a few gems.